Stuff You Should Know - How Abandoned Cities Work

Episode Date: July 2, 2008

Cities can become abandoned for a number of reasons, from economic meltdowns to nuclear catastrophes. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast and learn more about modern abandoned cities. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Brought to you by Consumer Guide Automotive. We make our buying easier. Hi and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff writer here at HowStuffWorks.com. With me again after a long absence is my former editor, Chris Palette. How are you doing, Chris? Doing great. The effects of the cryogenic freeze are starting to wear off.

Fantastic. Yeah, and your hair looks magnificent too, still. And Chris, I want to say congratulations on the birth of your second child. Way to do absolutely nothing. Thanks. Yeah. Well, let's get to it, shall we? Speaking of absolutely nothing, we're talking about abandoned cities today. Yes, and specifically modern abandoned cities. So, I mean, there's such a thing as ghost towns, and there's one, a legitimate ghost town out in California called Bodie, California. It was a old gold mining boom town, and they've got the old saloon and, you know, that kind of thing. But the thing is, when you go there, you can imagine gunslingers drinking sasperilla at the bar, but you can't really relate to them. I find modern abandoned cities much more fascinating,

don't you? Yeah, and in a way, it's even creepier, because you can relate to the people, when you see the things that are left behind by these people, you can relate to it a lot better than you could with the Old West, because we've never lived that lifestyle. Right, exactly. I mean, I've been a gunslinger, but it wasn't in the Old West, you know? I mean, give me a break. Right. So, one of the things when I was researching this article was that there's all sorts of different reasons why cities become abandoned. It can be a disaster. It can be because they've outlived their usefulness. There's all sorts of reasons why. Take Pripyat, Ukraine, for instance. This was an abandoned city because, well, it was right next to the Chernobyl

nuclear power plant when Chernobyl melted down, the number four reactor in 1986. This was actually the company town for the nuclear power plant. So, they were right there. A lot of people died, and they had to evacuate the city, I think, within 60 hours after the meltdown. So, everything was just left behind. Yeah, I've seen pictures that were taken by people who'd snuck into the government-controlled area. And that's sort of what I meant by the creepy, because you go in and you see all the stuff that people left behind in a hurry. And so, you see all these modern artifacts, pieces of these people's lives that they had to leave behind as they ran as fast as they could away from the radiation. And like you said, it's a lot easier

to relate to, because these are things in our lives as well. It makes it a lot more haunting, I think. Yeah. And then there's other cases like Detroit. Now, Detroit is not an abandoned city, but there are entire sections of it that are basically abandoned. And a city can become abandoned or partially abandoned just from an economic downturn, which is the case of Detroit, right? Right. So, I mean, have you been on ForgottenDetroit.com? Yeah, I've been there before. It's pretty fascinating, especially because these areas are right next to places that are still inhabited. Yeah. But they're like a world away. Exactly. They're boarded up. It's just natural light coming in. And again, like you said, modern artifacts just kind of scattered throughout.

Right. It's amazing to think that a city that I think of is one of the largest cities in North America just has these huge sections where the population has receded enough to create little pockets of abandoned city. Right. And Detroit's hardly alone. I drove to Alabama recently, and I can't tell you how many dying towns I drove through. And they have these fantastic ornate downtowns that are all just boarded up and unused. And there was a heyday there, and it was fairly recent. They like the 40s or 50s or 60s, but the population's dying off. The economy can't support it any longer. So, these towns are slowly becoming abandoned. Oh, sure. And the roads get rerouted when the interstate system changed the way people

traveled around the country. Yeah. That's pretty much like instant death for a town, you know? Yeah, that's true. Oh, speaking of a town that no longer has roads leading to it, you're number one that you chose for the article. Yeah, Centralia, Pennsylvania. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it's a city that had coal mining as one of its major staples. Well, it was what gave Centralia life, but it also killed it too, didn't it? True. Well, they ignited that underground coal fire. And of course, it's sitting on a massive amount of coal. So, this is burning underground, giving off toxic fumes, causing sinkholes, people falling in. Yeah, some 12-year-old kid almost got sucked into a 150-foot sinkhole that

suddenly erupted beneath his feet. That's when people started moving out. But there's still about a dozen people left. Despite the fact that the government has taken away the roads. Yeah, using eminent domain. Actually, the government also took away their lands, so these people are now squatting in their homes. So, if you haven't caught the drift at abandoned cities, they're pretty interesting. Look up five modern abandoned cities on howstuffworks.com. It will creep you out. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at howstuffworks.com. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?

On the new podcast, The Turning, Room of Mirrors, we look beneath the delicate veneer of American ballet and the culture formed by its most influential figure, George Balangene. He used to say, what are you looking at, dear? You can't see you, only I can see you. What you're doing is larger than yourself, almost like a religion. Like, he was a god. Listen to The Turning, Room of Mirrors on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off.

Cops, are they just, like, looting? Are they just, like, pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like, what we would call a jackmove, or being robbed. They call civil answer for it. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.